1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a plasma display panel and, more particularly, to barrier ribs of a plasma display panel.
2. Related Art
A plasma display panel (PDP) typically includes barrier ribs that define discharge cells. The two main types of barrier ribs are closed barrier ribs and open barrier ribs. The open barrier ribs are generally formed in a stripe configuration. Since discharge cells formed between such stripe-type barrier ribs are in communication (i.e., the discharge cells between each pair of adjacent barrier ribs are in communication), exhaust of the PDP and sealing of discharge gas within the PDP are relatively easily performed during manufacture.
With the closed barrier ribs, on the other hand, the discharge cells are not in communication. That is, the barrier ribs are formed into individual units having a quadrilateral, hexagonal, or other shape. With the closed barrier ribs, the discharge cells are separately formed for each pixel, and phosphor material is formed over all inner surfaces of barrier ribs that form each pixel.
In the first PDPs that utilized such closed barrier ribs, a gap formed between a distal end of the barrier ribs and the substrate opposing the substrate on which the barrier ribs are formed was used as an exhaust path. The gap was formed by adjusting the height of the barrier ribs or by forming depressions at predetermined locations of distal end areas of the barrier ribs. However, because of the minimal size of the gap, the resulting exhaust resistance necessitated the use of a significant amount of time to exhaust the PDP. This reduced overall manufacturing efficiency.
Various configurations have been disclosed to overcome these problems. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. Heisei 4-274141 discloses a structure in which open stripe-type barrier ribs and closed lattice-type barrier ribs are combined to reduce exhaust resistance. However, with such a combinational structure, the process of forming each barrier rib on the substrate during PDP manufacture is complicated. With this structure, productivity is reduced to such an extent that mass production is made difficult.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. Heisei 2002-83545 discloses a PDP in which closed barrier ribs are formed using a material that has a heat shrink property. The barrier ribs are formed having areas of lesser height that function as exhaust paths to thereby form a mesh-type structure of the exhaust paths. Although it is claimed that such a barrier rib structure reduces exhaust resistance during the exhaust process, in practice, there is a limited number of paths through which exhaust may occur as a result of the mesh configuration. This may result in insufficient exhaust of the PDP.